Academy: The Man With 1001 Holds
by Joel182
Summary: Academy is a wrestling high school with a multitude of stories to tell. The first one follows sixteen year old Evan Bourne's belief in an urban legend that has the young boy pining for the love of a special someone. JeriBourne. SLASH.


**DISCLAIMER: I OWN NOTHING! I ONLY OWN THE PLOT! THANK VINCE AND WWE AND HHH FOR THE NAMES :D **

**Part 1 of a long line of Academy. JeriBourne batting first :D Enjoy :D**

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><p>"Chris."<p>

"Hmm?"

"I love you."

"…Good for you."

That was my nine hundredth and ninety seventh confession of pure, unaltered love to the man I want to be with for the rest of my life. His name is Chris Jericho, and our story (he'll always call it my story) starts three years ago.

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><p><strong>THREE YEARS AGO<strong>

* * *

><p>I never got the concept of what other kids called death. Jack –the oldest of us all – said it had something to do with the human heart suddenly stopping. Mike – the second oldest – added that it could also come from poisonous stuff being present in our veins and blood. And Cody – the second youngest – complied all of that information and came up with the best explanation for what we had just seen on television. Death comes to us all without distinction.<p>

For me, a then thirteen year old kid, I cursed death for not pushing aside that semi-trailer and instead taking away both of my parents. And then I cursed Cody for lying to me. Death wasn't the end of a human life. It was the end of a human existence. I found out all this the hard way. On the day of my parent's funeral all I could ever think about was dying. And death.

After the ceremony ended, all the assorted guests went into what used to be a house of three. It was now a house of one. And it was crammed to the ceiling with people. Complete strangers who whispered amongst themselves.

_"Such a shame."_

_"What a horrible tragedy."_

_"They were gone too soon."_

_"And they've left a child behind."_

_"Who will take care of him?"_

_"Not me. I already have three."_

_"I can't. I live too far."_

_"We've just retired, and want to travel."_

Nothing but empty words clambering over the horrifying fact that someone had to take ownership of me in order to inherit all the wealth that my parent's had left in death. To me, none of that nonsense mattered. I just wanted my mother and father back. I would have gladly thrown away everything I had to bring them back. But just like the show on TV, they weren't going to come back. Death just takes. It doesn't give.

So I was alone now. A thirteen year old who's family wanted nothing to do with him. A kid who had been orphaned overnight and now faced the gallows of foster care. I knew how that system worked because Jack was a foster child most of his life. He watched other kids get adopted because they were younger. And he remembers clearly the look of pain and despair on the one's he had left behind when a pair of infertile parents came along and took him in. All those kid's knew what their life was. They knew for a doubt – after watching it wither away a little more each day – that nobody wanted them because they had passed the age of being trainable.

Like dogs in a kennel. The older ones get put down. The younger ones get loved.

I had long since left the main floor of the house – finding refuge in my bedroom. Once there I fell lifeless onto the bed and suffered in silence. The last thing I wanted was for one of those pandering gluttons to realize where I had gone to and subsequently sugar coat the possibility of joining their family. In that moment of lying stiffer than a board on my bed, I came to the conclusion that I had to die. I was no longer someone's child. I was no longer someone's most precious thing. I was no longer wanted. I was no longer loved.

I don't remember how long I had stayed inside that bedroom, but it felt close to an eternity. And then the door opened. I didn't even have the strength at the time to pay the intruder any attention. All I wanted to do then was muster up the will to end my own life. But as soon as I fell into the pit of despair, a large, warm hand came down gently on my head. It stayed there motionless for a while, before slightly rummaging through my hair, only to return to its previous state.

I turned my face to the side and fell in love instantly. That calm face, those crystal blue eyes, that kind smile. Every bit of it. That's what I fell in love with.

The hand on my head moved again and out of those sculpted lips came words encased in a voice so deep it shook the very core of my being – knocking it completely off balance.

"Evan" He spoke in what surely must have been a godly voice. "Come with me."

And I did. Without question.

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><p>Damn/ I ponder as I stare endlessly at Chris' wonderfully chiseled face from over the break of the couch's arm. /He's so beautiful./ I can feel the heat swirling around idly inside me. It transfers to my face and turns it beet red.

Taking notice of my longing, or probably just being creeped out enough, Chris removes his eyes from his book, and places them puzzlingly on me. After processing all that he needed to have processed, Chris finally spoke. "What?"

I smile sweetly at him to show him my gratitude. He could – after all – have easily continued reading and ignore me, or worse, left the apartment altogether. I am grateful that he did neither. "I love you."

Nine hundred and ninety eight. I guess that's enough for today.

Chris simply stares blankly at me, scoffs lightly, and returns to being engrossed in the words of his book.

Yeah. I guess I can stop for now. "Are you hungry?"

"No." He responds bluntly, and flicks over to a new page. I watch far too intensely, only because every move Chris Jericho makes must be burned into my mind.

"We should go to the park."

"You should go to school." His voice doesn't skip a beat.

I let a moment of silence pass by, before piping up again. "I love you."

Damn it! I told myself that I'd stop for today. What was I at now? Nine hundred and ninety nine. Crap. I had to watch myself from now on.

The slip up allows me to rise to my feet and grab my school satchel that's lying at the door with the small heap of shoes and unpacked books. I finalize my dressing and look over my shoulder to see Chris before leaving. He hasn't moved from that position. I smile. This – us – is a good thing that is better this way.

* * *

><p>"Nine hundred and ninety nine?" Cody stares bizarrely at me. "You're really pushing it Evvy."<p>

I mull over the taste of my new lollipop by swiveling it around inside my locked mouth - allowing my tongue to taste it from every angle. There was a stronger taste of strawberry than the cherry flavor posted on its label.

"I know." I reply after popping the candy out. It made a strange sound when I did that, and I happened to like that sound a lot. "I tried to control myself, but he was just sitting there all angelic like and I just instantly felt the urge to confess to him."

"Well…" Cody dragged. "You've already told him your feelings all of nine hundred and ninety nine times. I'm sure by now you're more telling him than you are confessing to him because he has heard that line almost every day from you. And yet he hasn't responded to you at all. I mean he avoids you like the plague here at school."

The words stung because they are true. Chris and I walk on the same soil here at The Academy, and yet I rarely see him. And when I do see him, he casts his eyes coldly away from me as if to say 'you're an eyesore'. My mind drips down, but luckily I catch it before it can plummet into despair. Those things shouldn't matter to me as much as Chris matters to me. I should just be lucky enough to even be allowed to reside under the same roof as someone as extraterrestrial as he is.

"I can't stop myself though." I slump onto the top of my desk. "Every time I see him I want to tell him that I love him, and then I want to hold him, and kiss him and do all sorts of things to him."

Cody blanches. "What sorts of things?"

I pull my eyes upwards to his face. It's not nearly as beautiful as Chris'. "I've been reading these books" He blanches some more. "And I've watched all sorts of videos. I've mastered techniques all on my own." His body stiffens visibly. I sigh loudly. "But it's all useless if I don't get to try them on him. And it's even more useless if he doesn't love me."

"Ev-" had been struggling out of Cody's mouth, but didn't pass the start line because of the fist of one very angry Mr. Callaway – our demon of a history teacher – that had connected squarely with the back of his skull.

The force of the hit drilled Cody's okay-looking face into the wooden desk top only to have it ricochet violently off the immovable object. It was an instant KO. I look up at Mr. Callaway (or as everyone calls him, the Undertaker due to his intimidating build and aura) to see him seething.

"Don't talk in my class boy." I flinch into a polite seating position and weld my mouth shut using the stray lollipop. Callaway sees it and grows angrier. He yanks it out of my mouth – an act that brings him so close to me that it's suffocating. /If only Chris would get this close/ crosses my mind and makes me question my sanity. Of all the things to think about, why did I have to go daydreaming about Chris right now? "Don't eat in my class." He puts the bulb of the lollipop in between his teeth and makes me watch him crush it like a car beneath a falling rocket. I feel my spine rupture in that moment.

A few seconds pass by in which I thought Callaway was going to melt my skin off my bones with those dark jade eyes of his, until a black-haired kid named Phillip Brooks speaks up to save me.

"Sir" The Undertaker turns to him. "We should get moving with the lesson."

"Yes. We should." Because of the proximity, I don't easily miss what I would normally miss. And that is a look of serenity that casts a long shadow on Mr. Callaway's face the moment he locks eyes with Phillip Brooks. I wish Chris would look at me like that. I'd give anything for him to look at me like that.

"Now class –" Mr. Callaway walks off to return to his post.

I look over to Phil and begin mouthing the words "thank you", when his eyes go from peachy soft to stone cold. He glares angrily at me before turning away. This, I know, is why the poor chap doesn't have any friends.

Then again…this is exactly the kind of response Chris used to dish out during the first hundred times I confessed to him. He wasn't warm like he was back then at my parents funeral. He was cold and heartless. But as time wore on, like a stray, he began to find comfort in his situation and live in harmony with it. I wasn't going anywhere and he wasn't going to kick me out.

I'd like to say I knew all that because he needed me. But the truth is, Chris needs no one. Chris was and is always a loner. He stands on his own two feet, and while on those feet of his he had whimsically decided to accompany a friend to a funeral. And there he met a crying orphan boy and took him in not as parent to child, but more like guardian turned roommate. Chris Jericho knows what he wants at all times and never has any intention of sharing that.

Chris is not a team player. I've always wondered how it is that he became the Coach of The Academy's sports facility.

* * *

><p>"Chris."<p>

"Mm-hmm?"

"I love you."

There. I had said it. The one thousandth confession. It has taken me nearly three years to finally reach my goal – one thousand confessions for one true response. I had even gone and prepped the evening for this momentous occasion. I had cleaned the apartment to the point where it put the top showrooms to shame. I had splurged on fine wine and roast beef (that I even cooked myself with visual instructions coming from the small TV) and scented candles. I had shaved every inch of my body that wasn't my head. I had taken nearly five baths in a row with various scented stuff that would stick to me and make me smell a lot nicer than I ever did before (which is a lot).

Everything. I had done everything to lead to this one moment. This moment when finally, after three years of waiting, Chris would look at me with eyes not full of disinterest, and tell me in that gorgeous voice, that he loved me too.

"Good for you."

For what seemed like an eternity, all I did was sit and watch – at a distance – Chris eat the five star roast beef. I listened to the food being stomped on by his perfect teeth, and rolled around by his seductive tongue. I heard the ball of mashed sustenance slide down his throat and land in the bottom of his stomach. I felt the burn of the acid as it viciously attacked the ball of food and dissolved it to what it deemed as important for the body. I had registered all of this, and yet it took me so damn long to finally hear the words that Chris had just said.

Good for you.

What happens next is a conclusion. It's what I always – somewhere in the deepest, darkest part of me – felt would truly happen. Chris was never going to love me. And I was never going to accept the fact that – despite the three years together – I always knew that to be the cold, hard truth.

In no time at all, the table and all its contents were strewn to the floor. A very shocked Chris looks back at me to find a face seething with anger, and tears drenching the skin. I didn't leave in that instant. I should have, but I didn't. I stayed in hope that maybe he'd fix what this had all turned out to be and make it what I wanted it to be. I stayed and hoped that Chris would finally acknowledge us – or even the possibility of an us – and hold me, and kiss me, and tell me that I was wanted. That I was needed. That he couldn't get out of bed without seeing my face. That a second did not pass where I was not on his mind. That I was his most precious thing.

That he loved me.

Chris Jericho, the most beautiful man on this Earth, stared silently at me. And I stood and watched as his expression sunk back into that hollowness that I had come to know over the years of being here. That deep void of emptiness that wears a placid mask for a face.

Chris Jericho doesn't love me because he won't, is what I used to think and therefore I felt I could cure it by reminding him that I did every single truth is crueler.

Chris Jericho doesn't love me because he can't.

He can't…and I didn't have a damn clue as to why.

So I ran away that night. I turn on my heels and leave with the shame that despite being together for three years, I was so engrossed with the ideal of Chris Jericho that I had lost sight of the real one.

* * *

><p>Needless to say – and it really goes without saying here – I outran the places I had to run to. At first going to a friend's house sounded like a great idea. However, as I steadied my pace and tried to catch the wind that had abandoned me, I come to the realization that not a single friend of mine lives close by. There is, after all, a reason I have to take two buses to get to their homes. Three for Jack. And having run out on Chris and my shame of not knowing him (even though I'd boast that I knew him down to a cellular level) in a pair of flared shorts, flip flops, a skin tight white T-Shirt, and no wallet then hiding out at my friend's place became a complete impossibility.<p>

/Damn it./ I crouch down and weep. Much like I did the second Chris said "Come with me". It wasn't the idea of an escape that pushed me through the door. It was the vision of something I had lost coming back to me in a way I never knew was possible. I had lost my parents and their love. But I had gained – almost selfishly – a new breed of affection that three simple words could never surmount to.

Instantly, I start crying again. I had just run out on the only good thing in my life with not a single clue as to how I go about returning.

Then something in the distance catches my tear-struck eyes. It's a small orange cat hiding in the comfort of the building's harrowing shadow. The cat looks at me the same way I look at Chris every day. With longing.

I stretch out my hand towards the cat. It clings more to the shadow. "Don't worry." I shuffle closer. It flinches, but doesn't move. "I won't hurt you."

Barely able to believe in those words, the cat stares at me with a sense of defensiveness. He'd probably heard this all before. At one point, he'd probably been here before.

"Come." I smile, and reach out to him. "Come with me."

* * *

><p>After a few hours of strolling through the nearby park, I return to find that the apartment is in the same condition that I had left it in. Instinctively I look to the dining area to find the table reset to its former glory of being a blank slate. The floor is spotless. The food is gone. But not Chris.<p>

He turns to me from the comfort of the sofa. I look at him with my very soul standing on pins and needles. His eyes steady on me for a while – holding me in place like a mold that needs to be set – before they fall gracefully onto my chest.

"What's that?"

"A cat." I cuddle him closer to my chest. "His name is Boomer."

"Boomer?" Chris parrots. "That's a dog's name."

"That's irrelevant because he's a versatile cat that can be a dog someday." What the hell was I talking about? I couldn't think of a reason so I used Boomer to ward off the awkward silence by placing him on the floor. He instantly ran for a hiding spot in the space separating the floor from the sofa base.

Chris watches this all in a barely-there kind of way, before returning to me his stony gaze. I don't like standing here uncertain and very much afraid, but I don't have the guts to do much about it. I had put all my hopes in those one thousand confessions, and in one night that hope was extinguished. So what am I doing here hoping again? What's there even left to hope in?

Chris sighs to the dead air and rises to his feet. At first his pace is like his stare – detached – but instantly it quickens and before I can react, he wraps me in his arms. I simply stand here frozen in the what's, why's and what now's.

"C-Chris?" I start shakily as I try to convince my heart that it's far healthier for us both if it would stop beating so fast. "Chris what are you –"

"Stop talking!" The shout forces me into silence, and we stay like that for a while. "Idiot's shouldn't talk."

/Idiots?/ I wanted to get angry, but I could care less about his verbal spews. What mattered was how much I honestly had no idea where this was going or to what he was referring to. But when he tore away from me – keeping his hands firmly clasped on my arms – the pain on his face made me realize how much it didn't matter. My heart instantly melts, "C-Chris –"

"You stink of wet cat."

All fleeting feelings left the room in that instant. Suddenly, things took a turn for the uglier side. "Well what does it matter to you?" I snapped. And I hated myself for it. "You don't look at me when we're at school! You pretend like I'm not even there!" /Shut up!/ " And then when I get home," /Shut up!/ "you drift off into one of your stupid books and treat me like a piece of furniture that you want to throw out but you're just too lazy to!" /Shut up!/ I disobey my own mind and push Chris back and away from me. "I hate this!" My voice cracks. "I hate that I need you! I hate that I want you! I hate that I love you!" Tears pour like rain. "I hate it all….but I can't do anything to stop it!"

I finally gather the gumption to glare at him. Even through tear-ridden eyes and boiling over with immense anger, Chris is still the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. And the sight of him in all his godliness makes me want to give up everything for him. Even myself. However, for all the effort, nothing comes to fruition. I'm still standing here, long after, staring at Chris. And Chris is still standing there with that glazed expression that I've come to associate with him.

In the end, I turn out to be the one who has to tuck tail and bite the bullet that I very much shot. There really isn't any use, is there? This was all just a waste of everyone's time, wasn't it? I had wanted to say those words, but staring at the man I love forced them back down my throat and instead had me coughing up humility. "Chris I—"

"One thousand." I stop talking, and he continues. "You've said 'I love you' exactly one thousand times since we've been together."

I can feel the heavy blush on my face that is all due to the fact that Chris Jericho had noticed. He noticed.

"What possessed you to do that?"

All admiration and new found love died instantly to that question. And from the ashes rises the phoenix of no-bullshit Evan Bourne. "It doesn't matter. It was just a stupid joke that my friend's played on me." I wait for him to say something because it felt like he should. But Chris simply stands in silence, forcing me to continue. I sigh mostly to bring back the guts needed to overcome the impending embarrassment. It really was a stupid, childish trick. And I had fallen for it. "Jack came to me with a website that talked about how to get someone to love you." Again I paused for Chris. He did nothing save breathe. "Cody and Jeff and even Ted all seemed convinced that this site was for real and that its suggestions were true. So I came home one day and researched on it. People from all over the world commended the site and they mostly commended one thing." I hesitated, only to realize that I had already gone too deep to stop now. "If you tell the person that you love them one thousand times exactly, then on the one thousandth time they will say I love you back."

Chris stays stoic for a while before bursting out into a fit of laughter.

"H-Hey! It's not that funny!" I speak from behind my equally embarrassing crimson mask. It was ridiculous – the story – but did he have to guffaw over it?

Eventually Chris controls himself and shortens the distance between us. He stares at me – not a speck of glassiness in sight – as if contemplating his next move. And then he goes to do it. He goes to touch me, but retrieves his hand. He holds it in a tight fist whilst looking away. Realizing that the moment was slipping, I gently placed my hand on the side of his face and bring his gaze towards me. The expression on his face is exactly the same as Boomer's the moment I first saw him outside. He's scared to let go of the shadows.

"Chris." I don't say anything more. Instead, I lean in and kiss the lips of the most beautiful man alive. And he doesn't refuse. He only deepens it to the point where we both break to a loud gasp of air.

I look at him and can't help but feel helpless. This is the moment that I should have said that one thousandth 'I love you'. But now I can't. I can't find the will to speak those three words because I no longer have a counter for them. I've used them all up in three years, and that site never mentioned how to obtain any refills.

As if sensing my inner turmoil, Chris pulls me to his body and whispers deep into my ear. "Say it."

I swallow all the air I can. I had said it a thousand times before, but couldn't recall a second where I hesitated as badly as this. Where my heart threatened to pull an _Alien _and burst out of my chest. Where my breathing became staggered. Where I became more aware of things like the surroundings, and Chris' overwhelming warmth. I took the time to savor this feeling (as confused and jumbled and varied as it was) and in a stumbled rush say "I love you" for the very first time.

"On thousand one." He scoffs – knocking my knees into useless mode momentarily – then plants a small kiss on my ear. "I love you too." He pulls back to meet my face with a gentle smile. It's the same one from three years ago. The same one that said exactly what he says now. "Come with me."

And I did.


End file.
